Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Product)

Otter.ai; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 275,000; Full time

Job summary

Otter.ai is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to shape AI-native product experiences and scalable systems. You will oversee architecture across AI-driven features, data pipelines, and delivery to user surfaces, partnering with product, design, and AI teams to turn opportunities into robust technical plans.

You will drive standards for evaluation, reliability, and performance, while guiding multiple product areas through evolving model capabilities and generation pipelines.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building and scaling complex systems.
• Owns technical and product direction for large or ambiguous problem spaces.
• Deep expertise in system design, especially data-intensive or distributed systems.
• Experience leading cross-team initiatives and influencing without direct authority.

Responsibilities

• Define system architecture for AI-native product surfaces and design foundational systems powering multiple product areas.
• Drive cross-team technical strategy and align architecture across product, AI, and infrastructure teams.
• Establish best practices for AI product engineering including evaluation, reliability, and iteration loops.
• Translate ambiguous opportunities into scalable technical approaches and execution plans.
• Raise engineering quality and influence product thinking beyond the team.
• Shape how AI accelerates engineering velocity and guides AI-assisted development.

Skills

10+ years experience

System architecture

Cross-team leadership

Product direction

Data-intensive systems

Ambiguity handling

Job description

The Opportunity

We’re building the next generation of AI-native product experiences, where conversations turn directly into outcomes. As a Staff Software Engineer on our Product teams, you’ll define how these capabilities are translated into scalable systems and cohesive product experiences.

You’ll operate across the full lifecycle of AI-driven features—from data ingestion and model orchestration to output structuring and delivery into user-facing product surfaces—but at a systems level. This includes shaping the architecture behind generation pipelines, defining how AI outputs are structured and persisted, and ensuring these systems are reliable, performant, and adaptable as both product requirements and underlying models evolve.

This role goes beyond individual features. You’ll drive technical direction across product areas, aligning product, AI, and infrastructure teams on how to build AI-native systems that scale. You’ll help define patterns for how we evaluate, iterate on, and continuously improve AI-driven experiences, turning ambiguous opportunities into clear systems and execution plans.

You’ll partner closely with product, design, and AI teams to identify high-leverage opportunities, prototype new approaches, and guide them into production—shaping both the product experience and the underlying systems that power it.

Your Impact

• Define system architecture for AI-native product surfaces Design foundational systems (generation pipelines, data models, evaluation frameworks) that power multiple product areas.
• Drive cross-team technical strategy Lead initiatives that span product, AI, and infrastructure teams, ensuring alignment on architecture and execution.
• Establish best practices for AI product engineering Set standards for how we build with AI—covering areas like evaluation, reliability, iteration loops, and system design.
• Translate ambiguity into scalable systems and product direction Take loosely defined opportunities and turn them into clear technical approaches and execution plans.
• Raise the bar across the organization Influence engineering quality, system design, and product thinking beyond your immediate team.
• Shape how AI accelerates engineering velocity Drive adoption and best practices for AI-assisted development, improving how teams design, build, and iterate on product.

We're Looking For Someone Who

• Has 10+ years of experience building and scaling complex systems
• Has a strong track record of owning technical and product direction for large or ambiguous problem spaces
• Demonstrates deep expertise in system design, especially in data-intensive or distributed systems
• Has experience leading cross-team initiatives and influencing without direct authority
• Brings strong product intuition and can balance user experience, system constraints, and business impact
• Is comfortable operating at a high level of ambiguity and defining both the problem and the solution

Nice to haves

• Experience building or experimenting with LLM-powered features (prompting, evaluation, RAG, etc.)
• Experience designing systems that balance latency, cost, and quality
• Exposure to user feedback loops, experimentation, or evaluation frameworks

About Otter.ai

We are in the business of shaping the future of work. Our mission is to make conversations more valuable.

With over 1B meetings transcribed, Otter.ai is the world’s leading tool for meeting transcription, summarization, and collaboration. Using artificial intelligence, Otter generates real-time automated meeting notes, summaries, and other insights from in-person and virtual meetings - turning meetings into accessible, collaborative, and actionable data that can be shared across teams and organizations. The company is backed by early investors in Google, DeepMind, Zoom, and Tesla.

Otter.ai is an equal opportunity employer. We proudly celebrate diversity and are committed to building an inclusive and accessible workplace. We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants throughout the hiring process.

Accessibility & Accommodations

Otter.ai is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our hiring process. If you need assistance or an accommodation during any stage of the recruitment process, please contact [e-mail] at least 3 business days before your interview.

Salary range

Salary Range: $210,000 to $275,000 USD per year.

This salary range represents the low and high end of the estimated salary range for this position. The actual base salary offered for the role is dependent on several factors. Our base salary is just one component of a comprehensive total rewards package.